On intellectual integrity

This is something I quickly wrote into notepad about two years ago. It isn't rigorous nor is it meant to be treated as rigorous but it still reflects my current thinking.

Intellectual integrity. It's rare, it's valuable, and nobody wants anything to do with it. People value pursuing the goals of their ideologies more than the pursuit of truth. And why not, who has time to work out the details when the earth, your soul, your freedom, your country hang in the balance? How often do we tell ourselves we know we're right when we merely assume we're right? Answer: every single time.

On fickle things

One of my hobbies is playing the table top game Warhammer 40k. The game is dependent on dice rolls and players will often make references to "the dice gods". Superstition regarding the dice gods is seen but isn't overly extensive, half serious rituals involving the "sacrifice" of french fries are popular among my friends. I don't consider myself superstitious but I did have my smaller dice arranged as a sort of pedestal for my larger dice. It was a shrine of sorts dedicated to the fickle dice gods. I've learned since then from other non dice related experiences that fickle things should not venerated or put anywhere near a pedestal. Fickle things, even when powerful, should not be held in great esteem. My dice are presently kept in an unceremonious pile. Other fickle things receive the same treatment, and I think to do otherwise would be unwise.

The story of my first cage fight

I was invited out to some event but wasn't sure if it was some kind of show or concert. It turned out to be a bit of both with some spectacle mixed in. They had a cage set up for fighting so I was curious about how it all worked. I thought there was a schedule of some kind and it seemed like it was all staged. A friendly guy started talking to me about it and found out it's not all staged and anyone can go in there and fight as long as you sign off on the don't sue me wavier. We both had in interest in fighting. He said he weighted 195lbs, I had estimated him initially at 180lbs, he was solid muscle. However he also said he had no experience fighting or with combative sports, however I suspect he's a fan of ufc. I weigh 140lbs but since I do have experience with various combative sports and have the benefit of a bit of unarmed combat training thought that would make a interesting match up. Our rules were fairly simple, no biting, eye gouging, or hits below the belt. When we fought my strategy was to get in close and go for a submission. However in the process I left my face too exposed. One of the first things I did was get a take down and he ended up on his back. He was smart enough to fight my efforts to turn him. At one point I had an arm bar but we were standing so I couldn't hold it for long. The closest I came was when I nearly got my legs in while trying to turn him but it's hard wrestling for position when the guy has that much weight on you. It was disappointing because I was just a tiny bit away from being able to execute a proper strangle hold. In the meantime the other guys strategy was to beat my face with his fist. Eventually my face was bloody enough that the guy refereeing stepped in to see that I was ok. We agreed to end it at that point. It was a humbling experience, but I gained a more realistic perspective on what I was capable of.

The Rule of One

I've been applying an idea one of my friends acquired from one of his sources of wisdom. The idea is that a man should keep one relatively close female friend. Not more than one because that would be a drain on a man's time and ability to pursue women romantically/physically. But having the one that you keep for genuinely platonic reasons is good for maintaining a man's grip on reality. She functions as a control group against the experimental group, the women we actively pursue. I've played with it multiple ways, in one case still using game while keeping the relationship platonic and in another case not actively applying directed game (it should be noted that I am a novice in the art of game and have limited knowledge in the science of it). The earlier case proved too unstable to develop a proper friendship but was very useful for my mental well being. The latter case is far more stable, it doesn't have the same impact on my mental well being but it provides a good way to ground myself. I am very amused at the stabilizing effects of keeping a platonic female friend has on my perception of women. On the one hand it establishes a woman I don't see as a sex object but on the other hand no one objectifies women quite like another woman. Although that could just be a side effect of how I tend to keep strange company.

Communicating with a blog

I want to communicate my ideas as precisely as possible. Because of this I won't be able to communicate as effectively as possible to a larger audience. While I do hope that a smaller audience is able to benefit from my writing, I write primarily for myself. Writing is deliberate and can be scrutinized in detail so the way I write is significantly different than the way I speak. I want to express myself at my highest level. I am going to write more casually than in a typically scholarly manner for the benefit of all involved but I will maintain the level of precision expected in scholarly writing.

Communication is complicated by the fact that we all have a unique distorted view of reality we call our perceptions. Every time we communicate anything directly to another person it goes through two layers of distortion. A source of distortion is our perception of individual words. The connotations and ways we use the same word is often different. A word like "love" is practically useless for precise communication because that word is overused. It is seen in a wide variety of contexts and it would seem to have as many definitions as people who utter the word. I try to avoid words like these but for that reason I included a list of definitions for some of the words I use. I do this to reduce the distortions inherent in translating what is meant by the words I am using. Sometimes people deliberately relish in the different connotations of words they use while forgetting about actually communicating their idea. An example of this is Randroids using the word selfish. That word has a positive connotation for Randroids because for them selfishness basically means acting exclusively for your self interest. An obnoxious Randroid enjoys the reaction they receive when they advocate selfishness.

Labels are frequently overused but they are far too useful and fun to be discarded. For this reason I will attempt to define every label I use. I try to avoid labeling myself if possible since it would confine me to a cul-de-sac. Rather labeling is useful as a heuristic for categorizing others. Even if you know nothing about someone, by acquiring enough information to assign a few labels, it opens up enough reasonable assumptions that can be made about a person to make accurate predictions about a wide variety of things regarding the person. When enough is known about a person labeling loses it's utility since assumptions can be filled in with actual knowledge and patterns disintegrate or get filled in. Discussion of game uses interesting labels and some authors expand the library of these labels. I want to avoid to this since I think these labels have become distracting as they approach meme status and slowly become meaningless. It's important not to forget that labels are nothing more than heuristics, while they have good accuracy, they still lack the precision I desire.

Getting Started

My intent for this blog is self serving. I will use it as a journal documenting progress made in my efforts, my embryonic ideas, and my perception of the world. I intend to remain anonymous, so some details may be omitted and names will be changed. I welcome comments; even in areas where I can rightly be considered an expert, my knowledge and understanding is still far from being complete or perfect. My goal is to be able to observe and monitor my progress as I move ever forward.